Anyone ever won an appeal.....

sho_me_da_money

marybelle01 wrote: »

Answer to question. Appeals almost never win. And since you can't appeal a FWW to anyone else are a waste of time. An appeal cannot increase the penalty. But neither does a tribunal care how wifey got her FWW - if she puts a foot out of line she will be sacked and the tribunal won't consider history - only what she was sacked for.

Other than that, I'm going with tallulah (who is not a troll - she gives excellent advice her that some people never listen to) - do what you want, knock yourself out, because I haven't got the energy to argue about what you don't want to hear.

Appeals almost never win - FALSE

An appeal cannot increase the penalty - Yes they can

The decision of the appeal may be to confirm the previous decision, to reduce the sanction or to overturn the decision altogether. There is no guarantee that an appeal decision will not impose a worse sanction, eg dismissing an employee who is appealing against a final written warning

An appeal could lead to 3 outcomes:

1. It could be upheld ( stay as a final written warning).

2. It could be reduced to a written warning if they thought that the final written warning is too harsh.

3. It could be increased to dismissal if they thought they were too lenient.

But neither does a tribunal care how wifey got her FWW - if she puts a foot out of line she will be sacked and the tribunal won't consider history - only what she was sacked for. - Not true

If a previous warning is shown to be defective, an employer's reliance upon it when dismissing will most likely mean that the dismissal fell outside of the band of reasonable responses. The employee's failure to appeal the defective warning will let the employer argue (in some cases) that the warning was nevertheless valid.

Alot of forum members thought wifey was going to get the sack as soon as she went on suspension with full pay. This didn't occur.

Many forum members also stated that wifey would get penalised for the accident of the child. This didnt occur.

We defended this case pretty well. We have even better reasons to appeal.

I just wanted to know if whether appealing on the basis that a procedure was unfair would/could result in a victory. A victory being the punishment reduced to a written warning. I think I have my answer.

mum2one

I had an ET case mine was unfair construstive dismissial, damm hard to argue in ET, I eventually took out of court settlement no liability.

At the same time a fellow manager been sacked, she won her ET case as the company had not followed the procedure at the appeal hearing, yet finacially i walked out with 4 times the amount she did.

sho_me_da_money

mum2one wrote: »

I had an ET case mine was unfair construstive dismissial, damm hard to argue in ET, I eventually took out of court settlement no liability.

At the same time a fellow manager been sacked, she won her ET case as the company had not followed the procedure at the appeal hearing, yet finacially i walked out with 4 times the amount she did.

Great result mum21!

When the company placed wifey on suspension with full pay - we all (Wife, I, Union Rep and a Family HR friend) thought she was going to get dismissed. To be honest, we were hoping she would because we had so much stuff to rip them apart with (despite the naysayers on MSE)

It turned out the company appointed an external HR agency who most likely advised them of the probability of success if the case went to Trib. We believe they probably cacked their pants and opted to go for an FWW.

I believe we can use the same points to appeal the FWW and have it reduced and/or eradicated in its entirety. If she chooses not to appeal she is more or less agreeing to the crime, which is pretty bad EVEN if she left to move on. In this particular case, I feel the appeal will result in:

1. FWW will remain - didnt win or lose anything
2. Dismissal - we take them to Trib and rip em apart
3. FWW is reduced - result.

mum2one

There is a risk to take it to appeal, as it may up brilliantly, or may end up them saying right x,y,z,hsppened, bye bye.
Did they give your wife a time limit that that the FWW would last. I use to be a manager and if we went down the disciplianry process with the staff, if it went to written warning it was on their for 6 months, if someone had a final written warning, that was 18mths.
Thats the company tried to do with me, and I was warned off the record that they were looking for any excuse to get rid of me, my situation was compliacted, - not helped by the employer, I was pregnant with my daughter at the time, and due to the due, and what they were doing my GP decided it was unsuitable to work whilst pregnant.

Your in a much stronger position than I was as you have union representation, and if (big if) it went down the ET route, you'd need to exhaust every opportunity in terms of appealing, and then the union would provide representation.

If your wife was sacked thats easier to deal with at ET, as the onus is on the company to prove that they did everything by the book, where if you did my rout, - I resigned because of what you did, - I had to prove the links, the mess ups etc.

Hopefully it will sort itself out, what does the union rep say about it all.

marybelle01

sho_me_da_money wrote: »

Appeals almost never win - FALSE

An appeal cannot increase the penalty - Yes they can

The decision of the appeal may be to confirm the previous decision, to reduce the sanction or to overturn the decision altogether. There is no guarantee that an appeal decision will not impose a worse sanction, eg dismissing an employee who is appealing against a final written warning

An appeal could lead to 3 outcomes:

1. It could be upheld ( stay as a final written warning).

2. It could be reduced to a written warning if they thought that the final written warning is too harsh.

3. It could be increased to dismissal if they thought they were too lenient.

But neither does a tribunal care how wifey got her FWW - if she puts a foot out of line she will be sacked and the tribunal won't consider history - only what she was sacked for. - Not true

If a previous warning is shown to be defective, an employer's reliance upon it when dismissing will most likely mean that the dismissal fell outside of the band of reasonable responses. The employee's failure to appeal the defective warning will let the employer argue (in some cases) that the warning was nevertheless valid.

Alot of forum members thought wifey was going to get the sack as soon as she went on suspension with full pay. This didn't occur.

Many forum members also stated that wifey would get penalised for the accident of the child. This didnt occur.

We defended this case pretty well. We have even better reasons to appeal.

I just wanted to know if whether appealing on the basis that a procedure was unfair would/could result in a victory. A victory being the punishment reduced to a written warning. I think I have my answer.

I knew I was wasting my time trying to help you.

It is illegal to increase a disciplinary warning on appeal.

I don't know where you get your law from, but it isn't law.

I give up. There is no point ever in trying to help you and there is no point in you posting - you have already decided what YOUR answer is before you post and believe nothing you are told. You are wasting our time and yours. Knock yourself out - you'll do whatever you intended to do anyway. You have managed to alienate nearly all of the posters with substantial employment law experience here already in your previous posts. I may not have the experience they have, but I am joining them - I won't waste any more of my time.

Pete111

marybelle01 wrote: »

I knew I was wasting my time trying to help you.

It is illegal to increase a disciplinary warning on appeal.

I don't know where you get your law from, but it isn't law.

I give up. There is no point ever in trying to help you and there is no point in you posting - you have already decided what YOUR answer is before you post and believe nothing you are told. You are wasting our time and yours. Knock yourself out - you'll do whatever you intended to do anyway. You have managed to alienate nearly all of the posters with substantial employment law experience here already in your previous posts. I may not have the experience they have, but I am joining them - I won't waste any more of my time.

+1 (re the highlighted bit above)

An appeals process that allowed an increase of sanction would very likely fall foul of employment law/process. A tribunal would be the only way to test this but I certainly would not like to defend such a practice in front of a panel.

This from Expert HR (v good HR website IMHO):
Can a disciplinary sanction be increased as a result of an appeal hearing?


The opportunity to appeal against a disciplinary decision is essential to natural justice and appeals may be raised by employees on various grounds, including new evidence having come to light, or the undue severity or inconsistency of the penalty imposed. The Acas guide on discipline and grievances at work (PDF format, 897K) (on the Acas website), which provides good practice advice for dealing with discipline and grievances in the workplace, makes clear that an appeal must not be used as an opportunity to punish the employee for appealing the original decision, and that it should not result in any increase in penalty, as this may deter individuals from appealing.
There is currently no binding case law directly on this point. Therefore, while, in theory, a disciplinary sanction could be increased as a result of an appeal hearing, in practice this may be viewed by an employment tribunal as being contrary to the principles of natural justice and hence unfair.
Where new evidence that results in new or more serious allegations being levelled against the employee comes to light during the appeal process, the new allegations should not be dealt with at the appeal hearing simply by increasing the disciplinary sanction. The correct way to deal with the issue is to adjourn the appeal hearing and then commence a disciplinary investigation into the new allegations. If there is a case to answer, this should result in a new disciplinary hearing being convened.


However. putting in an appeal may (unfairly or not) further mark an employee down as a troublemaker in the eyes of management. That is not to say don't do it, but in my experience appeals do often fail without substansive new evidence being presented as part of it.